


STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE'S DAUGHTER

by MHMacedo



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-07 00:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11047656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MHMacedo/pseuds/MHMacedo
Summary: Sixteen years before the rebel alliance destroyed the Death Star, Ky, a runaway princess, wayward and nearly forgotten, will be asked to return to her father's castle and carry out horrific orders for the Empire.





	1. Prisoner #413

The tube cut in just above her forearm, a deep blue liquid sinking into her vein, it's what brought her back, woke her up-- she hated the blue liquid.

Her wrists were locked to the bed. No, not a bed, a chair. Harsh light raining down, a table just below. She looked to the metallic surface of it. A face looked back at her, unrecognizable behind its swollen cheeks, cut lips, and the various shades of blue, red and yellow bruising across her nose and eyes.

"You don't look much like royalty," a voice called. There was no attitude or malice in it, the tone was flat, observational. She couldn't quite make him out in the light. Her ribs pulsed sharp just below her left breast. She remembered now, the fight, the pain, the cracking sound when they hit her torso, like rye crunching when you chewed.

She had told herself she wouldn't do it, wouldn't take a sampling of the product she was selling, but even as she made the promise, she knew it was a lie, or rather, a wish. Losing herself to the numbness of it was effective when she was in control but that had gone from her long ago.

"You're short," her supplier said as he checked the credits. "Again."

They met, as they always had, in a tiny old apartment in some forgotten corner of Imperial City.

"I haven't sold it all," she said behind bloodshot eyes. She had begun to drift again. His body lost its details and grew into a blurred hulking shape.

She collapsed to the floor, a burning across her cheek. She'd been punched, or so she assumed. More of them now, all around her. Short necks and leathered skin. She was half gone, but something kept her awake, aware. At least enough to know she was about to die. She turned it off, let the screaming in her brain fall silent.

Junnis gabbed her by the collar and pulled her up, "Not fighting back?" he asked.

She said nothing but her cool eyes and limp arms told him all he needed to know.

"I won't make it fast," he growled. "Examples take time."

He threw her across the room. Her shoulder snapped from its socket, before she could draw another breath a boot stomped from above, and here, the sharp, burning pain of her cracked rib.

The scream in her brain came back, louder now, not words but a cry, a war cry.

She pushed herself to her feet and ducked as a fist swung from above. She punched the creature ahead with her one functioning arm, a combination of jabs and an uppercut, always hit them in combos she remembered, an old lesson from a good friend. She wondered if the voice in her memory was really the voice of the woman who had taught her to fight. Was that even what she sounded like? Was she even alive now?

A hand grabbed her throat and squeezed. Junnis.

"I thought you were done," he said. She lifted her legs up, wrapping them around his arm and pulled down. They both came tumbling to the floor, she gripped the tails at the back of his head and smashed his head on the floor-- he fell silent. The two others rushed at her.

She reached for the holstered weapon at Junnis' belt and pulled-- the hilt of a saber. She tried to light it-- nothing happened.

The first man took her by the ponytail and lifted her into the air, she slammed the hilt across his face, dug her heel through his knee and heard it break.

The second man struck her abdomen, she crumpled over without air in her lungs, he brought a fist down on her face. She dropped to one knee but didn't fall. The saber sputtered on, a jagged yellow beam burning the floor. She sliced up, cutting him in half, with two quick sweeps she killed both men on the floor and the saber faded again. 

She dropped the hilt. The pain of the attack blossomed as the rush of the fight drained away. She flipped the corpses and dug into their pockets until finally, she found a small bag and the grey pills inside.

"You there?" the man across the table asked as she lost herself in the memory. She pushed her eyelids open and focused across the table, realizing now that the harsh light she had been wincing at wasn't a harsh, it was just regular light.

The man slid something to her. A file, a photo. It showed two girls between their mother and father. A teenager and a child. All four were cloaked in white, all four wore silver headpieces.

The prisoner looked only out of curiosity but said nothing when she saw it. She lay her head back, hoping to fade away, to drift back to sleep, but found herself more awake than she'd been in weeks.

"Ready to talk?" the man asked. She shook her head no. "You don't want to make a deal?" he asked. "Two counts of murder..."

"Two?" she said, her brow furrowing.

"One count maiming--"

"Who survived?" she asked, opening her eyes to him again.

"I... don't know," he said, his voice wasn't flat anymore. "Are you upset or relieved?"

"Surprised."

"We know who you are," he said, picking up the photo.

"Where have you been? Were you taken, or did you run?"

"Question of the century isn't it?" she said.

"And the answer?"

"Both."

"Were you taken against your will? Did the rebel guerrillas--"

"Take this blue shit out of me," she said.

"I need you alert."

"Then I'm done talking."

She listened. Then heard the sound of his chair scraping the floor, followed by footsteps, then a tug at her arm. He sat back down. She smiled.

"Why did you leave home?"

"We're not talking about that."

He blew a hard sigh and leaned forward. "We're sending you back to your father's Keep."

"No."

"No?"

"I can do the time."

"You're not facing time, your facing execution."

"You know who I am, you can't kill me."

"No one else knows. We can, and we will. Unless you do what we ask."

"What do you care if I go back home?"

"We want you to do something for us."

She thought for a second.... "What do I get?" she asked.

"Your life. A pardon."

"Not good enough."

"Then you die."

"Then I die." She remained in the same, comfortable position, nothing about her signaled a bluff.

"What do you want?" he asked, defeated.

"My sister. Is she still home?"

"She hasn't been seen in public in some time. But she lives with your parents. I'm sure she's--"

"I want her to come with me. When it's time. When it's done," she said. He nodded. "Not here though. I hate this planet. It's all metal and cement. I want us to have our own place, near nature, and to be well off. Both of us. Give me something to sign and I'll do it."

"You'll forsake the crown? You're the heirs to--"

"I don't need a crown, neither does Lilenn."

"All right." He went to the door and spoke to someone she couldn't see. "We'll draw up the documents in a minute," he said. A silence feel between them as she pondered something else.

"What do you need me to do?"

"An group of insurgents is planning an attack on your father's castle. It's a recruitment tactic. Their mission in itself will do very little for their cause, but it will show people that it can be done. That the Empire is not as untouchable as we say. We need you there when they come. You're a high valued target, we'll make you even more of one. We'll make you a symbol of the resilience of the Empire. They'll want to take you. Let them."

"You want me to slow their recruitment? Sabotage their ships?"

"Let them recruit all they want. When it's time, you'll tell us where they're hiding, when we come get you, we'll wipe them all out."

"What's the attack? What're they planning?"

"An assassination. You father's."

Her breath caught in her lungs. She looked up to him but said nothing.

"You want me to stop it?"

"We want you to allow it to happen. Make it easy for them."

She went silent, taking it all in. 

"Will you do it," he asked. Her heart drummed on but never faltered.

Ky nodded.


	2. Home

She remembered digging for insects in the dirt, the smell of wet soil, the creeks that ran across her father's land, though it belonged to him only in name, for all they had was truly 's their mother's.

Ky was five when her little sister was born. The baby was the only thing of any warmth in the whole of the castle.

But in the woods, she could run, she could be the thing her heart told her she was with very beat, every drumming boom insider her chest. She could be wild.

She remembered it now, the green grass and thick-leaved canopies, she willed herself back there, back to a child, back to peace. Or she tried, but it didn't work. The bile in her stomach churned and rumbled and burned as it came flooding up her throat.

A dark grey drone with a circular head and big round eyes drifted from above and sprayed the hard steel floor with something that smelled of lemon and spice and it made her vomit again. "Sorry," she told the metallic helper.

"Quite all right," it said, "if you didn't produce some kind of upsetting excretion I would be out of a job." its filtered voice the friendliest thing she'd heard in... could it be years?

Her body trembled, cold sweat pumping from every pore. It was as if her bones themselves were moments from cracking under the pressure. Though she wasn't sure the pressure was real, she knew it was overwhelming just the same.

Ky had never felt pain like this like this, she had never felt anything like this. She found it rather ironic that the thing she used to make herself feel better was what was causing all this horror.

Her vision blurred. The drone looked at her with what seemed like sympathy, but she assumed was only its way of taking her temperature because soon after it said, "You're still running hot, the fever should have gone down by now."

"Am I dying?" she asked.

"You may be. But there is no more medicines to help, the antidote we gave you is all there is for such an affliction. Poisons such as the ones you've partaken, once ingested multiple times, for such a long a period as you have ingested them, will either come out, or stay in, the difference often is indiscriminate."

"...Luck," she said, mostly to herself.

"Indeed."

She closed her eyes, back to the black dirt by the creek, the whisper of living things calling from the tree-tops. The fish in the rivers. The baby in her crib. Baby Lilenn, with her eyes like pools of sky-blue water. And that smile which made everything ugly and wrong to be a thousand miles away. "I'm sorry," Ky whispered as a deep, dark fog overtook her. In the black, she did not dream. She simply ceased to be.

"The insurgents moved up their time table," the man who had questioned her now stood over her bed, a handkerchief covering his mouth and nose. "We have to go. Now."

"I can't--" Ky began, but was pulled to her feet by two faceless sentries. Before she knew what was happening she was out the door and through the hall.

They threw her to a cold tiled floor of a different room, one she hadn't been to yet.

Her stomach was feeling better but the fog hadn't lifted. She tried to stand. The masked men stepped back, they turned and left the room. In another second, three women entered, without words they tore at her clothes, pulling off what they could and ripping the rest.

Ky was too weak to speak, to beg. Without the will to fight, she simply allowed it. A hiss knocked her back, stinging, burning. A powerful stream of water cut across every inch of her like sandpaper.

She remembered her mother then. Not a beating or a scolding but a smile. She couldn't remember why she was sad that day, it was a matter of a child, nothing important, nothing pivotal, and yet, she was upset and in need of comfort.

Her mother stood away from her as she cried in bed. She told her daughter the things one might tell to an upset student and then left the room, but the door was still slightly ajar and in the slit she saw her mother's face as she received a prominent guest who had been waiting, and she saw the smile that came upon her. As if the matter of her daughter's tears was something to be just barely touched upon and immediately forgotten.

In another room now, her hair fell in dark matted chunks to the floor. They pulled and cut, her neck pulled this way and that as the women had their way. She wanted a mirror, she wanted to see. The darkness came again, in way of a syringe.

This time she did dream. She dreamt of black fire in her father's castle and the little girl screaming inside. Little sister.

The floors were shaking and she thought she was still in the dream. But she was in a ship. Compact and rattling. More white clad men in masks sat across from her. They didn't speak.

The ship stopped with a jolt and clatter. The metal bar across her lap pushed itself off. The two men stood. She did the same. They walked to the door, she followed them.

She looked down and noticed the dress, it flowed in piles to the floor, a tail reaching back to her seat. "Put it on," one of the troopers said.

"What?"

He gestured up, above where she had been sitting. A silver circlet had been locked against the wall. She moved to it, as her fingers touched it, the clamps holding it in place removed themselves and she pulled it loose. It was a tiara, the same she had as a child.

She laid it on her head and joined the men once more.

The door jutted open. The light saturated everything white. She turned from it.

"Come Princess," said the colonel who was writing on the other side. He reached a hand out to her. She took it and stepped out.

The multitudes cheered her arrival.


	3. The Gamily Name

The doors to the Throne Hall  stood tall and impenetrable, the wood of it cut from the surrounding forest, they loomed over Ky now as she waited to go inside, just as menacing as they had been when she was young. Where once she was not allowed in the West Wing of the castle, she was now summoned to it. And when those heavy doors parted, they parted for her.

The nobles who had been called from every corner of the planet, some even from other worlds, stood from their seats when they saw her. 

Her silver headpiece gleamed beneath the fires that lit the hall. She moved across the long stretch, her dress trailing behind, to her family who sat at the stage on the other side of the room. Her father at the king's throne, her mother just beside it. She searched for her sister but couldn't see her.

The nobles knelt as she passed. 

Her stomach still rocked uneasy beneath the soft wool of her dress, her lungs still stuttered as she breathed, a common side-effect she had grown accustomed to, yet it felt foreign here, the cold sweat she had grown to expect between long bouts of her last taste didn't belong beneath all of these nice things. Nothing of hers belonged.

She reached the bottom of the steps and lowered herself to one knee. She bowed her head. Her father stood but before he could go to Ky, her mother had already risen from her seat. She walked cool and even across the stage while Ky remained, head down. Her mother's shadow slid over her until she was covered in its dark. 

A hand fell open her head, the fingers slipping through her hair. Ky shivered. She rose and followed her mother up the steps, they both took their seats and her father made a speech. She didn't hear it, didn't see much beyond the faces of the strangers staring up. 

She looked for Lilenn in every pair of eyes but she was nowhere to be found. The crowd applauded her return. Some even seemed to mean it, but it wasn't for her. They clapped for themselves. For the pride of the Empire and their little piece of it. Ky saw them as they were, rich, protected--superior. Their will was the will of the powerful. She wondered if any of them would die when the rebels attacked. As long as it wasn't her or her sister, she couldn't care less.

#

As they stepped from the eyes of the crowd and into the narrow hall leading out of the throne room, Ky could no longer hold it back, she threw up, partly on the floor and partly on her dress. Her father looked at her as if she were a child who didn't know any better but her mother's expression never changed. She was still a queen looking down to her subject.

A droid hurried to the princess and went to work cleaning her as they stood there in the cramped corridor. 

"Come to us when you're done," her mother said. 

"Where's Lilenn?" Ky asked, her head was spinning and the taste in her mouth made her want to vomit again but she fought the urge.

"We can speak after--"

"Where is she?"

Her mother was silent for a moment, Ky assumed it was because it had been years since anyone dared interrupt her. "She's in training. The Empire's asked her to serve and she complied."

"You sent her away..."

The queen put a hand on the droid standing between her and Ky and pushed it aside. It  stepped back and bowed. 

"Your sister was born with a power beyond our comprehension. Something divine. Important. She was asked to serve her Emperor and the family obliged. She is making us proud, she'll soon make the entire galaxy proud."

Her parents left her in the narrow hall, being helped by a machine. Ky remembered it clearly now. The reasons why she left, the coldness, the talk of family above all else, but it was not a real family her mother spoke of, it was a name, a brand. It had been three years since Ky called herself by the name given to her through her bloodline. The name of Casterenn.

#

Lilenn was born sweet. Her cheeks were round and red as apples and she could smile a smile that made even the harshest man soft. As a little girl, she was obedient, unlike Ky, she had never given up on attaining her mother's approval, even when the queen saw it fit to punish them with violence and isolation. 

Ky thought about her sister now as she soaked in a tub in the high-tower. She remembered their conversations about the changing world and her sister's concern at the new regime. 

"What does it mean?" Lilenn had asked Ky when the news had come. "What will be different now that we're an Empire?"

"It means they can do what they want," Ky told her. 

"Everyone's happy..."

"Everyone here," Ky said. "We're rich. We'll be fine. But other people won't be."

Ky could see the confusion in the girl, but in the end, Lilenn sided with her sister. She was too good not to think of others. 

Ky cried into the bathwater, she cried for the sister she left behind and she cried for herself, for the guilt that never faded after she ran away and left Lilenn to fend for herself. She craved the numbness she had found in the world, she wished she could forget all that was in her mind and heart and simply fade.

But guilt can be appeased with repent. And she would not fade away. Lilenn needed her. Three years ago, Ky left this castle and her sister behind, now, Lilenn was in the hands of the Empire, being used in whatever manner they felt was needed. She would not allow it. 

An attack was coming, she alone knew it. Once taken, she would be brought back to the Empire and she would take her sister with her, to a new land, a peaceful world where they would live the rest of their lives without worry of war or even politics. 

She would hold on and keep her part of the deal. When they came to kill her father, she would let them, just as he had let their mother rule them as she saw fit, even when it meant being locked to a dark room or struck down by their teachers.     

Ky stood from the tub, water splashing to the cold stone floor. She moved to the window, the half-moon glow beating blue against her body. She watched the night, waiting for a star to fall.


	4. The Girl With The Red Hair

The young woman darted through the bar doors, beneath the layers of fabric draping her body, she was not more than a pair of blushed red cheeks beneath wide hazel eyes. All manner of creature populated that dank, stone-walled space, yet, unlike most bars she had visited, this one had a hush about it, the hush of anticipation. 

She moved to the counter and sat down. Her rosy cheeks glistened with beads of crystalline sweat. 

"What can I get you miss?" the bartender hissed. She looked up to him and lay a credit chip on the bar. 

"Something strong," she said. As the bartender took off to fetch her order, she turned to the pair sitting a few stools down. "Excuse me?" The closest one turned, its fangs pointing up from an oblong jaw. "Why was the king's speech canceled?"

"Where have you been?" it grunted. "Princess went missing."

"Was she taken?" the woman asked. 

"Taken or run away. They're searching all over." The door opened again and the simmering hush of anticipation was fully realized into a heavy airless silence as the Guard poured inside. Behind them, a small squad of stormtroopers.

A glass was set in front of the woman. She drank half of what was inside with one long pull. 

"Everyone in this bar will be questioned," the leader of the Guard announced. "Keep your seats. We'll come to you."

They made their rounds, one by one, clearing each person with questions and a thorough check of their papers. The woman at the bar had relaxed by the time they reached her. Her head was swimming with drink and her face no longer perspired, her cheeks eased into their regular shade of beige. 

"What's your business here?" the leader of the Guard asked her. 

"I was going to attend the king's speech. Shame it was cancelled, I do hope you find the princess."

"We will," he said, holding out his hand. She handed him her I.D, he scrutinized it and returned it to her, paying little mind. "Young ladies ought not be here with the runoff," he said, eyeing the other creatures in the bar. 

She smiled politely. "Perhaps you're right," she said and stood from her stool, moving slow and easy toward the exit. The leader of the Guard turned back to the bar, his eyes locked on something. The glass she left behind. She smelled it, his nostrils stung. 

"Hold it," he said. She stopped. A figure of falling fabrics in the center of a sitting crowd. "Pull it back," he ordered.

"Sir?" she asked, her voice small.

"Your hood. Take it off."

No one moved. Her eyes fell on a man at the table at the far end. And another across the way. They watched her but said nothing. 

She lifted her hands to the hood and pulled. Her hair spilled free in a wave of red and orange, like a current of running lava. 

"It's her," he said, lifting his blaster-- a blood-red blade burned through her robe, she gripped the hilt of her saber and pushed up as he fired, the blade cut across the laser's path as it nearly struck her and smashed into the ceiling above, carving out a chunk of debris.

The woman ran to the Guard leader, she split his blaster in half with her blade and brought it down across his chest-- he dropped to the floor in two large pieces. 

Across the bar, a man and a creature tackled the closest Guards and stole their blasters-- their lasers pierced the stormtroopers before there was time to react, the woman sliced left and and right at the kingsmen by her side and in another instant, the chorus of guns and blades fell back to silence as members of the Guard and troopers lay dead on the floor. 

"Out," she said as her blade retracted back to its hilt. All the bystanders and staff hurried through the door, leaving only the woman and the two members of her team.

The creatures stomped his way to the woman. "You said you could do it," the monster said, breathing down to her. She remained in place, feet firmly planted. Had it been anyone else, the Terem would have cut her throat.

"The king never gave his speech. I had no shot. Things change."

The creature's blood boiled, logic burning to nothing in the face of his rage. 

Marc holstered his gun. "It's not her fault, but we still have to do something. They'll know we're here soon, we have to get off planet--"

"We won't get another chance," she said, ripping off the rest of the fabrics. Leather armor wrapped her body black. Hain Mosin now looked just as she had in the photos spread all across the galaxy with the words 'Most Wanted," stamped in red over her head. 

"Chance to what?" Marc asked.

"To hurt them," she said. 

A blast cut through the Terem's head. The floors shook as he fell, the wounded trooper on the floor jumped to his feet and stumbled out the door. Hain and Mark gave chase but the trooper had already climbed his speeder and was turning the corner into a path through the woods.

Hain snached the blaster from his hand and jumped on one of the now ownerless speeders. "He'll give us away," she said as a sort of apology for taking the gun and leaving him behind. 

"Get him," Marc replied, knowing she was their best chance. In a moment she darted off and was gone from sight. 

He could feel himself being pushed from her grace. The mission was her life. To Hain there was nothing more to live for than the destruction of the Empire. All else was only distraction. He was a distraction, and now, he was getting in the way.

She pulled right as the path turned, the trooper ahead was nearly to the Castle across the forest, if he made it to the border, there would be no escape for them. 

She stopped the speeder and lifted the blaster. She took a deep breath, her eyes relaxing against the fading white dot in the far distance. She fired.

Behind the cluster of trees, a crash was followed by silence. 

The gun fell from her trembling hands. She closed them into fists and shut her eyes. She could feel the shaking hilt of her saber as she cut through the men, she could picture the rotting body of the unclaimed trooper in the woods. She liked it. And she hated that she liked it.

The leaves tapped and sang as rain began to fall from a thundering sky. A twig broke just ahead. Her hand gripped the blaster-- she looked up. 

A girl stood there, no more than sixteen, mud-caked and scared. Hain recognized her from the videos of the royal family, the girl recognized Hain from the wanted poster holograms she had seen her father's men carrying around. They recognized each other. The Runaway Princess & The Girl With The Red hair.

*Note: please let me know what you think so far with likes and or comments!


	5. Choices

Ky used to dream of living in the stars. When She was too young to know any different, that's what she thought happened to the ships that took off all across the horizon. She watched them from her chamber window, little drops of light rising in the night, joining the twinkling field in the heavens.

Now that she had been across the galaxy, she knew there was nothing to join, and whatever pain you were trying to leave behind would come with you, to every world, every sun.

She looked out the same window, the sky was busy, stars and ships, all the same from down here. She wanted to remember the wonder, but looking up there now, she felt nothing at all.

Though she couldn't see the city from this side of the castle, she could hear the roaring celebrations. The people still cheered her return.

A piece of the glimmering night was blot out by a slice of dark, like a shadow without source. It landed to the south, in a valley miles from the castle. It was them.

Before she could think of what would come next, a knocking at the door broke her concentration. "Yes?" she said. The door opened, the service droid entered the room and bowed its head.

"Your highness, you father would like a word."

She followed the servant out to the dim hall. As they walked, she let her fingertips run along the walls as she had as a child. In her head, she counted the passing seconds. If the insurgents had speeders, they would be here in minutes.

The droid came to a door which was flanked by two guards and knocked. "Your highness? The princess..."

The door opened. The man behind it thanked the droid and opened the door wider to let Ky inside. She had seen her father at her arrival but he had been wearing make-up and robes, a crown. The man who stood before her now was much older than the one she remembered, he was smaller too, frail. His beard had grown in length and lost all of its brown. It fell in white wisps to his chest.

He walked to the back of the room, it was his chamber but Ky's mother no longer slept in the same bed. Not since Ky was very young.

"Child," he said, turning to look at her, tears in his eyes. "My child." He took her in his arms and squeezed. Ky was stunned at the gesture. Her arms remained at her side. If he had ever embraced her, it would have been before a time she could make memories. He pulled back and looked her in the eye. "I know you ran. I know they didn't take you. I knew it the second I heard you were gone."

She watched him, the eyes she had convinced herself to hate. She wanted to hit him, to push him down and tell him she didn't need him. She did once, but not anymore. She didn't need anyone now.

"Why did you let her hurt us?" was all she could manage, the anger in her chest drowned in a well of sadness she didn't know was there.

He had nothing to say, his face dropped with shame.

"I ran at first. But I was recognized. They took me but.... it's a long story."

"All this time, you were alone..."

"No. I had someone. I lost her."

She watched him, the sad eyes, the sagging skin and thin bones. He was almost nothing in the plume of the nightshirt. "I hated you more than her," she said, unsure if the thing bubbling in her chest was rage or sorrow. He said nothing though surprise was clear on his face. "You could have stopped it."

"Run," he said. "She'll want you to join... you have to leave."

"Join what?"

"Your sister."

A tree swayed across the chamber window. Ky ran to it and looked down. Two robed figures rushed inside while other shadows circled the castle.

"Someone's here. We have to go."

She gripped her father's hand and pulled him from the room.

"What is it?" he asked as they came to the hall.

"Where are your guards?"

"They should be here..."

The hall fell to darkness as all the lights cut out in unison.

"Weapons," she whispered. "Where are--"

From the black, a yellow blade burned on, another-- red, was followed by a blue. The deep colors revealed only a few inches of the space around them. Hoods and faces, eyes and teeth.

Behind them, a fourth blade blocked their way back to the room. Ky knew her mission. To keep him alive would be to defy the Empire. She would be a target, hunted, her sister would be lost to her.

Ky stepped in front of her father. Her hatred for him gone, as if taken against her will. It had kept her warm all this time, it gave her all the justification she needed for leaving, now, all she wanted was more time with him.

"Ky," a voice called behind the red blade. Ky recognized it.

Hain's blade fell to darkness and she stepped close to Ky and her father. There was a look beyond recognition in both pairs of eyes, a look on things unrequited and unspoken.

"Don't hurt him. Please," Ky begged.

Hain scrutinized the faces of those around her. "Come with us," Hain told Ky. And she obeyed.


	6. Death Sentence

Ky held her fathers hand as the ship rattled and clanked, making its way up through the atmosphere choppy. For now, she was an observer, without power or resource to do much more than watch and hope the vessel didn't fall apart as it sounded it would.

"Why did you come back?" Hain bent down to Ky, her jaw tight, her eyes glazed with suspicion. The ship rocked this way and that, Hain held to the low ceiling, staring down at the captives.

"I had been away too long, it was time," Ky said. If she others in the group group knew the truth, not even Hain would be able to protect her.

"You forget how well I know you Princess. You didn't even have the means to board a ship, last time I saw you--"

"I sold it. All I had. I made it across. What are you going to do with us?"

Hain's eyes narrowed as she pondered the possibilities. Something smashed into the ship, Hain was thrown back, and the others strapped themselves in as one man ran to the turret controls.

The ship still hadn't climbed from the atmosphere as the squadron of royal starfighters formed behind it. 

A barrage of green lasers rained upside down, spiking into the insurgent ship, ripping the metal and burning black holes in the silver. 

The air pulsed as Hain's man fired back, solid red slashed cutting across the sky, thumping and booming at the squadron whose tight line broke quick into a panicked scatter. 

The lead fighter banked and fell, letting loose his guns, the lasers banged into the bottom of the airship, a shower of red and yellow sparks shimmered down across over the greenery below. 

"Don't stop!" Hain yelled to the man in the turret. 

"They'll kill us!" someone called behind her. It was the youngest man in the group. His eyes were wide with the fear of a first fight. 

"We have their King and Princess," Hain said. "They're trying to make us stop, not kill us."

"They're trying to make it impossible for you to jump," Ky said. 

"We'll break apart if we do!" the young man cried. 

"We won't," said Hain. "Not yet. We just have to get through--" she stopped herself as she looked out the window, a royal star destroyer eased silent across the fading sky, waiting for them.

Hain unstrapped herself and ran to the cockpit.  "Aim at it," she said. The pilots turned back but said nothing. "They'll expect us to turn."

"There's a reason for that," the co-pilot said.

"They can't fire on us if their squadron is being us and the squadron can't shoot if their destroyers' ahead.

"What do we do when we run out of--"

"Jump," she said. "There'll be enough time."

"Not much."

"Then hurry."

Hain ran back to her seat and locked herself in. She had been right, the squadron fire had ceased and the Stardestroyer sat quiet above. But she knew it wouldn't be long before they were pulled into it. 

At that moment, the ship stretched and bent and nearly broke apart as the pilot jumped them to some unknown part of the galaxy.

#

"This wasn't the mission," the lieutenant said. Hain's head was bowed, she searched for the right words in the scuffed grey floor of the make-shift base. It had once been a popular bar where the black market fueled its economy and population, since the Empire's crack down, it had been left abandoned, and now, it was a secret separatist base.

"I made a mistake," she said. "I have history with the girl."

"Why didn't you mention it?"

"I didn't think it would be a problem."

"The king is complacent, he can't be allowed to live. Kill him, make it public."

"Sir?" she asked. Not of the killing, that she understood, but making it public?

"Record it, spread it across the galaxy, show them we're not to be taken lightly. Whoever sided with the Empire pays with their life."

Hain thought about what he was saying. She had killed for the cause many times but never in cold blood, and never a someone who was defenseless. Yet, the king's complacency had affected many lives, he deserved to die. 

"Your history with the princess..." the lieutenant began. "You're referring to what happened a few years ago?"

"Yes. We took her when she ran away from home. I wanted to hold her, maybe turn her. The others only wanted to kill her."

"So you killed them instead."

"Yes."

"And Marc?"

Hain said nothing, only stared at the scratches on the floor.

"Those men were extremists, you had cause to kill them, but we're trying to build something here. I need your word you'll follow orders."

She nodded.

"Go, kill the King. Keep the girl, she may be useful in the future."


	7. House Casterenn

"I'm sorry," the king said, his head bowed, his arms locked behind his back in the small black room. 

Ky watched him now, and though she still saw the small, weak man she had seen as she had grown up in her mother's shadow, she could now sympathize with him.

The marriage between her mother and father's kingdom had been an arranged one, when they were both young, made for the sake of the people. Her father, she had read, was a sensitive young man with a heart for reading books and an interest in athletics. He never wanted to be king, and certainly he never wanted to marry the woman who became his wife. Ama Thorne was known to be controlling and callus, and she wanted nothing more than to be queen.

It was her decision to marry Jensen Casterenn, not only for his position, but his inability to exert his will. She knew if she remarried him she would be a true queen, a ruler, a conqueror. And when it came to their children, she had the final say. 

"I wish I was strong," he whimpered.

"I blamed you," Ky said. "But it wasn't your fault. It's always been her." Ky was also shackled to the wall. The room smelled of old drink, she thought it must have been where they kept the barrels when this place was a saloon. "You don't deserve this."

Her father looked to her, his eyes filled with tears. He chocked on the words, the words the queen would never let him speak for fear of making their girls soft. "I lov--""

The door hissed open and behind it stood Hain and two others. She hesitated at the threshold when she saw them.

"Please don't," Ky begged, her eyes flooding immediately. She saw two paths ahead, one with her father and sister, where a new life spread before them with possibility and hope, and the other, a wall of black, void of a future. "I can help you," she said. "I can spy on the Empire. You know me. You can trust me. Tell me what I can do and I'll do it. Anything..." 

Hain turned her attention to the floor. She heard every word, and now she had to do what had to be done regardless of how she felt about it. "I"m sorry," she whispered and  stepped aside. The two men rushed past her and unchained Jensen from his locks.

"No, no..." Ky began, involuntarily-- "Stop, please-- father..." 

The king looked to Ky as they took him but was too stunned to speak. KY's strength gave out, an invisible dam keeping in the tears. It broke. She broke.

Hain could do nothing to calm her, so she did not try. She left, Ky's wailing muffled as the doors closed behind her.

#

"Your highness," the young guard said, his voice breaking. The queen pulled her eyes from the empty black sky and followed him to the war room where blue light projected a scene in the middle of the room. The entire security council stood around it, watching, helpless to stop what was unfolding. 

The king was on his knees, two insurgents at his side. 

"Who can see this?" she asked, eyes glued to the shimmering lights. 

"Everyone," the guard said. "The whole galaxy is watching."

The queen's lips quivered, slight and unnoticed to all but herself. She gripped the fall of her robes in her fist. She had little love for the man, but he was the personification of her House. The House of Casterenn now knelt for all to see. Weak and crying and afraid. 

Hain stepped into the frame. All who watched gasped. The Girl With the Red Hair, the notorious rebel who had carried out and killed more Empire soldier than any other. 

She looked into the camera but said nothing. Her saber ignited red. She gripped it with both hands and lifted it into the air. Then, she brought it down across the king's neck. 

Ama's legs faltered, the young guard took her arm trying to hold her upright but could not. She fell to her knees. The screen fell to darkness and the room was silent. All the queen could hear was the beating of her own heart, dull and hollow in her ears. 

A shadow fell across the threshold. The queen raised leaden eyes to her daughter, Lilenn. The girl stood nearly unrecognizable, her body draped in black robes, her once beautiful chestnut hair, now gone from her head. Her yellow eyes watched in silence.

"You're home..." the queen said, still in shock.

"I am," her daughter answered as she stepped into the room. The others remained in place, their eyes and mouths locked shut.

"They've killed us..." said the queen. "They've killed our family."

"They haven't. I'll find them. I'll end the resistance."

"How?"

"I can feel her. I  can feel Ky. She wants me to come. She needs me. There's not much left of her."


	8. The Loved Ones

Ky didn't want to cry. She wanted to be strong, she wanted them to think of her as she had once thought of herself, fearless, independent, unshakable. But that was no longer who she was. Not for a long time now. She bowed her head in the little dark room and wept, her tears falling into tiny puddles between her feet.

"There was nothing I could do," Hain said. Ky didn't hear the door open, she was taken by surprised, embarrassed by her weakness. But she knew the last person to judge her would be Hain.

"I know," Ky said. "Or, at least I hope I do."

"I would have stopped them if I could even though..."

"Even though what?" Ky asked.

"Even though I think what you've done is unforgivable," Hain said.

"At my lowest, you come to throw stones?"

"Ky... you were-- we... Marc died saving your life from the others. He died for you and you let yourself become a shadow of yourself, you and that junk--"

"I needed it. The pain was too much," Ky looked at her, the tears that were falling for her father now fell for herself, herself and her sister. "I left her there. I left Lilenn... and now she's-- I'm sorry Hain."

A wall of silence fell between them, Hain took a step to the door, ready to let it go when Ky broke the wall with three words. "I loved you."

"I know."

The room shook-- dust from the ceiling fell in a soft, transparent wave. The sound of an explosion thundered somewhere in the distance.

"What--" Ky began, before she could say another word, another explosion cracked the walls, sending her to the ground. The shackles stil wrapped her wrist but she was no longer restrained.

Hain reached for her keys and unlocked Ky's locks and pulled her up. In the corridor and beyond, men shouted commands while others screamed. Blaster shots rang out.

"Can I trust you?" hain asked. Ky nodded. Hain handed Ky concise blaster she kept hidden at her back and the two women ran through the darkened corridor, toward the sounds of death.

The hall opened into a wide room, what once was the saloon. Bodies littered the floor, some were still moving, other lay still, ignorant of the chaos, eyes still and hearts unbeating. Others ran, fired back, though there was nothing to win against. The Empire had come. And bedlam had come with it.

The roof of the saloon was torn and burning, shot apart by ships, ships Ky knew the name of but had forgotten in her shock. Troopers poured from the ships which has landed, more were sure to come from the few that had not.

Ky saw Hain who was yelling to her now, yelling and shooting. But she knew this was the end. There was nothing else to be done. They were nothing against what had come. The tide was rising, and nothing stops the tide.

Another ship landed. Ky's eyes fell on it and stayed there. She didn't know why but she had to see it, had to watch as the ramps fell as the stick of troopers shuffled out, blasters in front, firing, killing, every man a murderer.

And behind them, something else. Someone else. Black robes and a hood. Ky couldn't see her face but she knew. Right then-- even then. She knew.

Lilenn's eyes rose yellow from behind the hood. She watched the carnage with pride. She didn't see the bodies, the death, only a victory. And then her eyes fell on Ky. For the first time in three years or more, was it more? Ky couldn't remember. But it was her, it was Lilenn. Her sister. 

Even through the terror of the moment and the chill of her sister's yellow eyes, Ky couldn't help but smile.


	9. You're The Knight

Lilenn was crying harder than ever before that night. Ky knew this night would make a difference, whatever happened, it would change them, for better or worse. Lilenn was only six and Ky eleven, though it might not seem like it to some, eleven was quite grown up when you had a six year old sister.

Ky took Lilenn's hand when their mother left the room. Her threats were real, they both knew, what came next would be something terrible, something not to be forgotten. And they were right. 

The queen came back with Lilenn's Buellen in hand, the animal was small, its eyes wide and black, it was terrified. Their mother screamed about whatever it was that Lilenn had done wrong though neither girl heard. The Buellen had been in their life as long as they could remember and now, as it sniffed the air with its small sub nose, trying to find a way out of her grasp, they could think of only the what was surely coming.

"Take mine!" Ky had yelled, raising a hand to her mother for mercy--

Ky owned the sibling, the match-- the Buellen hadn't come alone when they had gotten them as gifts from a distant czar, a man who had traveled the galaxy when he heard word of the princess' birth.

When Lilenn was born five years later, Ky gave her one of the two animals, though the often let the siblings roam and play together, each girl had their own animal, a rare, legendary thing, each since they were born, and, they believed, for their entire lives thereafter. 

But they were wrong. Tonight, one of the animals was going to die by their mother's hand. And Ky offered hers in the place of Lilenn's, because as much as she loved her Buellen, she loved Lilenn more. A thousand times more. And she could not bear to see her sister suffer they way she was. 

Their mother heard the words, Ky's plea: Take Mine, and for a moment she froze. She knew the lesson had to be taught, but here was a better one. One of sacrifice and family. 

"Our family is our shield, our shelter," she said, puttin down Lilenn's Buellen which sniffled the ground and darted beneath some furniture for the rest of the night, hiding. "You weakened our family today Lilenn," the queen said and moved to the cage by the wall where Ky's Buellen was resting, its own snub nose tucked between its paws. 

The queen reached inside and took it by the scruff of its neck. 

"Please mama..." Lilenn cried.

"Every action has a consequence," Ama said to her daughters. "The penalty for hurting the family is death."

She squeezed the animal, a short crack could be head beneath her palm, then it was done. She dropped it to the floor and it fell without protest. The girls watched it as it lay on the ground like a thing that had never been alive at all. The queen walked out and the girls were left to mourn. But Ky didnt' cry.

She kept herself from shedding a single tear. She only held Lilenn as she let out every tear she had inside her and more. By the time she was done, Lilenn was so tired she fell asleep in her sister's arm.

Ky slipped herself free and snuck down the hall, she wanted to go somewhere quiet where she could see the stars, but she didn't make it. She fell in the dark hall between one room and the other. And now, here, she finally wept. She remembered speaking to those small black eyes, telling it things she told no one else. And she thought of the fear it must have felt, the helplessness. "I'm sorry," she said to the empty hall. "I'm sorry..."

Ky fell asleep there, crying and talking to herself. When morning came, Lilenn came with it, and when she saw her sister sitting there like a mound of white in the grey hall, she wrapped her hands around her in a tight hug. Ky woke to it, embraced it. She needed the warmth. The small shallow breaths. The love. 

Lilenn gave her sister a plastic disk.

"What is it?" Ky asked. 

"I made it. For you."

Ky took it and touched the small black button. The disk shot a blue figure against the wall. A knight. And a small girl beside it. 

"It's you," Lilenn said, "...you're the knight."

And then Ky looked up and Lilenn was there, those eyes, not her sister's eyes, not anymore. Lilenn looked down to her, her blade still burning at her side. Rebels lay dead all around them, others still fought but Ky couldn't see them from here. 

"You betrayed the Empire, brought shame to the family," Lilenn said. "You will be tried."

A blaster ray cut the air towards Lilenn head, she lifted an arm and within a second had thrown the red shot into the wall without touching it. The Force, Ky thought, her sister really had it. It was real.

Lilenn's hand shot out at the one who had fire the shot-- Hain was taken by the invisible power and frozen in place across the base. Lilenn tightened her grip and Hain screamed in pain.

"Stop!" Ky shouted, begged. But Lilenn did. Or stop. She squeezed harder and Hain's legs gave out beneath her.

"I'll come with you, I won't fight. Let her go and I won't fight," said Ky. 

Lilenn held Hain for another moment then let her go. Hain fell to the floor, weak and unable to rise. She turned to her sister and retracted the blade of her saber. 

"Follow me," she said and walked back to the ship. Ky looked to Hain who lay beaten and weak on the floor. Their eyes met for what Ky thought would be the last time. All she wanted to say had already been said, she only hoped Hain believed her. She took a deep breath and followed her sister to the judgement that awaited her.


	10. Murder Song

Ama watched from the castle's curtain-wall as her Lilenn's ship skated silent from the dawning sky. The restoration of the family name was at hand. They would not fade and crumple but persevere. With Ky's judgement and sentencing, she would lose a daughter and gain her place in the empire. But she was not without sorrow. Though she kept it buried, she did have a deep love for both her daughters, beneath the anger and betrayal, the love had never died, and though she knew it would be hard to carry out what would come next, she knew that to let a traitor go free was the only way the truly destroy their family.

The ship came like an arrow toward the castle, straight and fast, it slowed and drifted to the landing zone, Ama watched eager and nervous as the ramp came down. The troopers all snaked out, and then, nothing. She waited, a distant crack of thunder rumbled in the far distance. 

The ship's ramp closed-- "No," Ama whispered to herself. The ship floated up and in another second it shot out toward the blood-red sunrise. 

"Your highness," A Guard called running to her. "Should I send a squad to--"

"No," she said, knowing the scandal it would cause to have both of her daughters chased by their own guard. "Prepare my ship," she told him. 

 

#

Lilen's ship skidded into the dirt, ripping a gash into the soil, cracking the hull before it finally stopped. Inside, she leaned over the controls, her back to Ky whose hands were once again bound. She watched her sister for any sign of what she was thinking. She had ordered the troopers to leave the ship when they reached their family's castle and, with very little knowledge of how to fly, she took the ship and landed them here, where here was, Ky wasn't sure, not until the ramp opened at the back of the ship. 

Aside from the long cut of brown the ship had left in its wake, the grass here was so furiously green it hurt her eyes to look at it. It had been years since they had come here together. But the last time they had been here, a promise was made between them, and that promise was the thing that had driven Ky to near self destruction.

Lilenn crossed to her now, her eyes red, her cheeks swollen with a dam of held-back tears. She released Ky of her restraints and picked her up by the arm, marching her to the open ram-- she threw her sister down the metal incline, Ky fell, rolling down to the wet field below. 

The hilt of a saber flew past her head and landed on the ground a few feet behind her.

"Pick it up," Lilenn said. 

"What? Lilenn, we're not going to fight."

Lilenn stood in the open mouth that was the top of the open ramp and fumed. She gripped her own saber's hilt. "Pick it up, or I'll cut you down." Her blade shot into the air beside her but Ky didn't fear it. 

"It's alright," Ky said, pushing herself up to her knees and bowing her head. 

Lilenn stomped down the ramp, Ky could feel the vibrations in her chest-- Lilenn stopped and the heat of her saber burned at Ky's cheek. She could see the red of it even though her closed eyelids. 

Then, her throat closed and she was lifted from her knees, off her feet, into the air by something that wasn't there. She opened her eyes, her eyes watched her with a deadly gaze. Before the world went black, Ky was thrown once again, this time far from the ship. To the middle of the open field. She landed on her back, the air pushed from her lungs. 

"We have to look out for each other," she remembered saying to Lilenn on this very spot. "No one else will look out for us. I, Ky, of House Casterenn, promise to be my sister's keeper, from this moment, until our last. " She raised her and Lilenn did the same. Their fingers intertwined over each other's hand, and a promise was made. 

"Pick it up, or I will cut you from this world, I swear it," Lilenn said, she stood over her sister once again, but her eyes were now full of the tears that had refused to fall before. 

Ky crawled to the hilt and wrapped her hand around it. She stood and faced Lilenn, lighting the yellow saber. Somewhere across the world, lighting struck and the thunder echoed across the pale grey sky.

Lilenn raised her saber and pulled it back, ready to strike--

"I'm sorry," Ky said, her saber still down. 

"Raise it!" Lilenn screamed. 

"I'm sorry I broke my promise to you. You're right to be angry. You're right to want to kill me."

"I'm meant for something, something greater than us. I have a destiny with the Empire, I don't need your apologies, I need you to raise your blade and face me-- face your judgement."

"You're looking for something, and you think the Empire can give it to you. But what you lost is here, between us. Nothing can fill that void, believe me, I've tried."

Lilenn said nothing but Ky could see it, it was there as clear as all the anger and sorrow. Love. Lilenn still loved Ky, she was still the only good thing in the castle, the only good thing in the planet. "They want me to hate you," Lilenn said, her voice losing its fire. "I tried. After you left, it was almost easy. But I couldn't. I can't..." 

Her blade disappeared, and so did Ky's. Lilenn's hand reached out, taking her sister's fingers and lacing them between her own, restoring a broken promise. Lilenn's head came to rest on Ky's shoulder and a long silence took them, the years between Ky's running away and this moment faded. A light rain began to fall, covering both girls.

Ky opened her eyes to see her sister whose anger had gone and now her cheeks had settled back the way they used to be. Her eyes fell on something across the field. Hain, who was on one knee, her blaster tucked close to her eye, to the scope of the weapon, and her finger on the trigger. 

Ky pushed Lilenn aside-- as she landed, Lilenn wasn't sure what had happened. She looked up to her sister who didn't move, she stood there as if she had frozen in time, but the rain still dripped from her fingers, and a white wisp of smoke rose from her chest.

All at once, Ky folded to the ground, and by the time she fell, she was already gone. Lilenn's eyes caught a glimpse of Hain, who was still on her knee, her face aghast. She hadn't moved a muscle. 

Behind Hain, a group of rebels rushed to her side and gripped her, pulling her back into their smoking ship. She was thrown inside and the ship took off into the clouds and then it was gone.

Lilenn hurried to her sister's side, hoping there would be something, anything, to be done. But there wasn't. Ky's eyes were closed and her lips slightly arched up, in a calm smile.

Lilenn's rested her head on Ky's chest and sobbed. Something raked against her forehead, something in Ky's pocket, something small and plastic. Lilenns pulled it out and turned it on. The crudely drawn image of a knight was projected into the falling raindrops. 

"You did your family proud," said the queen who had landed without Lilenn's notice. And the rage which she had so warmly let go of came back with such deep roots she wondered how the Empire had done such an efficient job of instilling it inside her. But here her sister lay, in the field of the broken promise, and the promise had been made and broken for the same reason, their mother. Without whom none of the misery suffered would exist. 

Lilenn's hand had already gone to the hilt of her saber and before she could tell herself to let the anger fall from her, to let her mother's words disappear like smoke, she decided there was only one way to take everything from her mother, who had taken everything from her and her sister. Lilenn shot to her feet, the blade burning red at her side--

The queen's guard fired. The barrage of red rays cut through Lilenn like she was nothing more than air. "No!" the queen shouted, and took her daughter in her arms before she could fall.

Lilenn could feel her life fading but she used the last bit of the strength she had in the Force to hold herself there a moment longer so she could speak the last two words to her mother which she knew would be the only appropriate payback she could think for a life of pain and misery. 

"No heirs," Lilenn whispered, and let herself fade into the rain. 

The queen held her limp daughter in her hands, the future of her House going cold beneath her fingers. She wept. 

The End


End file.
